The US says additional $2.2bn (£1.83bn) in military aid to Ukraine will include long-range missiles capable of doubling its strike range.
This brings the total amount of military aid to Ukraine from February 2022 to more than $29.3bn (£24.31bn).
The package includes ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) that can hit targets up to 150 km (93 mi) away.
But officials refused to be drawn on speculation that the munitions could be used to attack parts of neighboring Crimea.
“It’s clearly their decision when it comes to Ukraine’s plans for the operation,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters.
“It gives them a long-range capability, a long-range firepower, which will enable them to operate again in defense of their country and to take back their sovereign territory, the territories occupied by Russia.”
Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and considers it part of its territory. But it has come under intermittent fire from Ukrainian forces in recent months.
The West has repeatedly refused to provide Ukraine with offensive weapons – such as fighter jets – that it could use to strike against Russia itself.
In a tweet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States and President Joe Biden for the additional aid.
“The more long-range our weapons and the more mobile our troops, the sooner Russia’s brutal aggression will end,” Mr. Zelinsky wrote. “We stand together with [the United States] against terrorism.”
Previously, Ukraine’s longest-range weapon was the Hymars rocket system, which can hit targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. Kyiv used the system to devastating effect during its counteroffensive in the south and east last year.
The GLSDB also gives Ukrainian forces the ability to strike anywhere in the Russian-held regions of Donbass, Zaporizhia and Kherson. It also allows Ukraine to threaten Russian supply lines to the east.
Developed by Boeing and Saab, the GLSDB is a gliding rocket with a small bomb attached, capable of hitting a target within one meter of its position.
And it can be fired from a variety of weapon systems, including the Hemaris and M270 MLRS systems already in use in Ukraine. However, both the Pentagon and Boeing declined to comment on delivery dates for the system, with some reports suggesting it could take up to nine months to reach Ukraine.
The new package – which will also include additional Hammars missiles and 250 Javelin anti-armor systems – comes amid concerns that the West is too slow to provide fresh military aid to Ukraine.
“The GLSDB should have been passed last fall,” US House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers said in a tweet. “Every day it’s not approved, there’s a day it’s delayed in handing it over to a Ukrainian who’s willing to kill a Russian.”
In recent days, reports have surfaced that Russian aggression is intensifying in the eastern Donbas region, with pro-Kremlin bloggers suggesting that the town of Bakhmut, long the focus of Russian offensives, has been surrounded on three sides. has gone
But President Zelensky said his forces surrounded the town and would not surrender it to Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian leader said that we consider Bekhmet as our fortress. “If [the delivery of] weapons is accelerated – that is, long-range weapons – we will not only give up Bakhmut, but we will begin to dismantle Donbas, which has been occupied since 2014.”
Mr Zelensky said a long-running Russian spring offensive had already begun in the region, and his Defense Minister Oleksii Rezinkov said earlier this week that Moscow had mobilized around 500,000 troops for the new offensive. What is it.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian leaders are holding fresh EU accession talks in Kyiv with the bloc’s leaders, Commission President Ursula van der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel.
Speaking after the summit, Mr Zelenskiy said the leaders had agreed “it is possible to start talks on Ukraine’s membership in the EU this year”.
But Ms van der Leyen said there were “no hard timelines” and stressed that Ukraine had political goals it must meet before joining the bloc.
The EU has repeatedly stressed the need for Ukraine to step up its fight against corruption, reform its judiciary by eliminating political interference and strengthen its economy.
Elsewhere, Germany has announced plans to send Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine. The first model of Leopard 2s – which Berlin has already promised to deliver – could be delivered to Kyiv sooner than the advanced model.
